Mom to get mental health exam

Updated 10:44 pm, Thursday, November 7, 2013

Jennifer Marie Vargas' public defender says she has a “profound” “inability to communicate.”

Jennifer Marie Vargas' public defender says she has a “profound” “inability to communicate.”

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Jennifer Marie Vargas, maiden name Hackney, when she was arrested for assault in Williamson County in 1999.

Jennifer Marie Vargas, maiden name Hackney, when she was arrested for assault in Williamson County in 1999.

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Mom to get mental health exam

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A military wife accused of tearing her 6-year-old son's genitals, then trying to repair the damage with superglue, has been ordered to undergo a mental health evaluation to see if she is competent to stand trial.

The order for Jennifer Marie Vargas, 33, comes the same week that friends of her now-estranged husband, Army soldier Samuel Simpson, have launched a Facebook page to post well wishes to the boy. Additionally, a fundraising campaign has been launched to help Simpson and their two children.

Vargas was arrested late last month after reportedly admitting to injuring the child at their home at Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston.

The child had surgery to repair a 1.5-inch tear to his scrotum. Vargas later admitted to investigators that she was angry and pulled the boy's genitals hard, causing the tear and bruising.Vargas also told agents that rather than seek medical attention, she cleaned the injury with alcohol, put superglue on it until it stopped bleeding, stuffed paper towels in his underwear and sent him to bed, court records said.

Her husband, who took the boy to the hospital after discovering the injury, told the San Antonio Express-News last week that the boy will recover. He also said he plans to divorce Vargas, whom he's been married to for 11 years.

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Vargas' lawyer, assistant federal public defender Alfredo Villarreal, sought to have her evaluated by a professional, records show.

“Because of the profound level of defendant's inability to communicate, it is believed the evaluation should be conducted in a hospital setting, and that she should be transported to a Bureau of Prisons medical facility for such evaluation to be completed,” Villarreal wrote in a court motion. The document hints that Villarreal might seek to have Vargas' confession thrown out if she is found mentally incompetent.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Pamela Mathy signed an order earlier this week approving the evaluation. Vargas may be transported to Springfield, Mo., where the federal prison system has a facility for mental health evaluation and treatment.

Also this week, Mathy signed a gag order barring attorneys from discussing the case, which went viral online and was picked up by international media after it was first reported by the San Antonio Express-News. The order comes after Villarreal complained of pretrial publicity.

In an email to the Express-News, a woman who said she is Vargas' half sister described Vargas as having grown up in a world of physical, mental and sexual abuse. Attempts to reach the sister for further comment were unsuccessful.

In the email, the sister said Vargas was raised separately, and that Vargas opted to have little contact with some of her relatives.

“I hate to say this, or by any means am (I) defending her actions, but she honestly didn't have a fighting chance,” the sister wrote. One time, the sister said, Vargas wrote in a social media message to another sibling that “all the family she has ever known caused so much pain and hurt that family is like having cancer.”

Meanwhile, the online campaign said Simpson, who's been in the Army 11 years and has had four overseas deployments, might have to leave the military on a hardship clause to fend for his children. He's buried in debt, said Lyssa Thames, who launched the campaign.

“He had planned on being a career soldier and retiring, but he can't now,” she said Thursday. “Everything he's worked for has come to a stop ... Staying in the military means he won't see his children, while forfeiting his career leaves him with no means of supporting them.”